The first Transformers was nommed for 3 Oscars, the second one for 1, the third for 3. Seems like the franchise has had staying power in the tech areas. But none of them has ever WON. What’s your prediction for “Extinction”?

It’s obviously a series with excellent technical potential, so VFX will always be a strong possibility and the sound categories depend on the quality of the competition. If there is a film like Gravity or Avatar this year, then it won’t stand a chance, simply because it might be looked at as ‘old hat’. Look at Interstellar or Into the Woods to be that film.

Something I notice with the Visual Effects category in the past 3 three years is that they follow a pattern. That pattern being 1 slot goes to a Best Picture nominee, 3 slots go to a Prequel or Sequel to a previous nominee and the last slot goes to a film I’m pretty sure barely anyone or no one was predicting.

2011:Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 (Sequel)Hugo (Best Picture nominee)Real Steal (The Shocker)Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Prequel)Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Sequel)

2012:Marvel’s The Avengers (Sequelish, a better Iron Man sequel than the Iron Man sequels)The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Prequel)Life of Pi (Best Picture nominee)Prometheus (Prequelish)Snow White & the Huntsman (The Shocker, that was also very well deserving of a nomination)

2013:Gravity (Best Picture nominee)The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Sequel to a Prequel)Iron Man 3 (Sequel)The Lone Ranger (The Shocker, that I correctly predicted to get nominated)Star Trek Into Darkness (Sequel)

I think Transformers: Age of Extinction is most likely getting in mainly because of this trend.

I actually would’ve given Transformers 1 a win. It’s even one of the best VFX works I saw in the 2000s. The only reason why Revenge of the Fallen only got one nomination was because it was god-awful, even by Transformers standards. The Dark of the Moon was at least ten times better than Revenge of the Fallen.

I think that Age of Extinction will still get at max 3 nominations at the Oscars.

P.S.: The fact that Pacific Rim, a movie that was very Transformers-like in the VFX department (but not in the story department, because I freakin’ loved Pacific Rim) was shut out could spell trouble for the fourth installment.

Well heck. If Stevie Wonder can win “Best” Original song for “I just called to say I love you”, a Makeup win for “Harry and the Hendersons”, and “What Dreams May Come” a VX Oscar, “Transformers” is in the running. The question remains however; who wants to watch the movie, or the screener? And will anyone admit to it if they do?

They’ll never give an Oscar to the Trasformers movies. And why should they? They probably don’t want anything more to do with a series that’s viewed as one of the most embarassing examples of movie-making. It might be embarassingly successful as well, but that won’t be enough in this case.

Maybe, if only the tech branches voted, it might would have a shot, but the whole of the Academy usually views this as an opportunity to give another statue to an already prestigious movie. Hence why recently only BP nominees were able to take this award home. And while I don’t entirely agree with that attitude, the Transformers series really don’t need that Oscar. Those effects are big budget ones, but not something groundbreaking that could ascend the movie’s quality.

They’ve given plenty of Oscars to films that aren’t necessarily the best, so Transformers shouldn’t suffer because of that. The first film should have won, it was groundbreaking, it was insane, it was amazing. Not many people could’ve imagined being able to see this on the screen as great as it was the first time around. And not just VFX but the sound too. So what do they do? They give it to the movie with a big polar bear or whatever the hell it was they thought was so deserving about a film that was such a critical and commercial flop that its planned sequels never happened. So let’s not pretend like they always go for the “better” films.

The next two films in the series might have been seen as just an upgraded version of the special effects from the first one so maybe they weren’t special enough, and one of them lost to Hugo which isn’t that bad. The second one, I don’t remember what film ended up winning.

The issue here is that nobody from that department is responsible for how bad the film is, they did their job, they did it perfectly, the movie still looks incredible, go ahead nominate them and if it has to happen, give them the Oscar. People get make up Oscars all the time and if this is still the same team, they deserve a makeup Oscar for the first Transformers as much as Denzel Washington, Alan Arkin and Morgan Freeman needed their makeup/career awards.

“They give it to the movie with a big polar bear or whatever the hell it was they thought was so deserving about a film that was such a critical and commercial flop that its planned sequels never happened.”

I preferred The Golden Compass to Transformers and I predicted it’s win. Lol. I would far rather have seen a follow-up to this than the Transformers franchise blazing it’s mechanical path.